An Illinois man has been sentenced to two years of probation for threatening Minnesota’s lieutenant governor through social media in the wake of the mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Aug. 27 after the shooting that killed two students and injured another 21 people. She said her heart went out to those affected and asked people to join her in prayer.
Caden J. Sluder, 23, of Oglesby, Ill., commented on Flanagan’s post: “You should be genuinely shot and killed,” according to the criminal complaint filed Sept. 3 in Ramsey County District Court.
Sluder also commented: “Children’s blood is on your hands and soon it will be coming out of your mouth and (expletive) throat as we beat you” and “You should be strung up by the neck,” the complaint said.
A Minnesota State Patrol trooper working at the Capitol district was assigned the case after a Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension criminal intelligence analyst reported their open source aggregation system alerted them to a threatening post.
Sluder, who was identified by an IP address, told the trooper over the phone that his posts were a joke, adding: “I’m not actually gonna (expletive) do anything. I’m not crazy.”
He said he was “pissed off and Christians got killed in Minnesota and the Lieutenant Governor was wearing a trans shirt.”
The 23-year-old shooter at the church died by suicide afterward. The shooter’s mother had filed a petition for a name change for him from Robert Westman to Robin Westman, noting Robin Westman identified as female, at age 17.
Flanagan has been pictured in the past wearing clothing that said, “Protect Trans Kids.”
Sluder was sentenced Friday over Zoom after pleading guilty to an amended charge of gross misdemeanor third-degree riot. He originally was charged with felony threats of violence.
Judge Joy Bartscher followed a plea agreement that Sluder reached with the prosecution, staying a 353-day jail sentence for two years, during which time he will be on unsupervised probation. His plea deal included having to complete 50 hours of community service, therapy and anger management courses, as part of conditions of probation. He met those conditions before sentencing, according to court records.
On Tuesday, Flanagan declined to comment on the criminal case through her spokesperson.